2nd SATA Hard Drive Installation

[stuarj1]

Was hoping would be as simple as plugging it in and then setting as a slave on the BIOS... seems I was a little too optimistic.

I have a new hard drive in on a clean install of Windows 7.
I would like to add my old hard drive, transfer existing data from it, then format it and use it for extra storage space

However, the BIOS never regognises the 2nd drive.

Motherboard is ASUS Rampage 2 Extreme
Both drives are Seagate Barracuda's 7200.11 (3tb & 1.5tb)

New drive has Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit
Old drive is on a triple boot and has Windows 7 64-bit, Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit & windows XP 32-bit installed (this may be the problem?) Only really want the data from Windows 7, don't need anything from XP or Vista.

No idea where to go from here.

Can anybody offer advice?

[rch1231]

The only thing I can think of is that the second SATA port is not enabled in CMOS setup. On some mother boards you have to tell the BIOS that there is now a drive conneted and then if will probe the cable. With SATA there is no primary-secondary like PATA because they are on their own cable. Just double check that you have it plugged into SATA1 (Primary should be in SATA0) and not a RAID port. If you have it in SATA2 or SATA3 make sure you have the second SATA controller enabled or move it to SATA1.

[stuarj1]

Thanks for the reply.

All the SATA ports are enabled - ven swapped drives over to check...

Still not registering 2nd drive, regardless of what port its in.

[rch1231]

Do you hear the drive spin up? Do you have an external housing (USB)you could put it in? If the BIOS is not seeing it then the drive may not be working. External housings are around $35-$40 depending on the retailer and brand.